


he called it training

by Soulykins



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Experimentation, Gen, Past Child Abuse, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Restraints, all the siblings really, before five's jump, limits, she's FAMILY, some thoughts about what training might have been like for five, they stopped the apocalypse and Vanya is fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 11:19:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18072464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulykins/pseuds/Soulykins
Summary: Before Five time-traveled, the siblings had all been pretty private about their individual training and the general trauma that their Dad put them through on a regular basis. So it comes as a surprise when they're all gathered talking about nothing and it evolves into almost casually revealing some of the shit they'd gone through in the name of 'training' their powers.Five has never really talked about the other aspect of his training, but he finds himself telling his siblings anyway.(They'd been so young and so scared and they hadn't even known it was wrong - Reginald Hargreeves was a monster plain and simple)





	he called it training

Reginald Hargreeves had been a cold and uncaring father to them all. His training sessions were more like experiments, and even when they were small and tiny and didn’t know better than to cry and beg, their childish tears had never swayed him. They’d kept the training sessions to themselves for the most part, each one unwilling to admit just what their dad put them through, just in case the others had it easier. Just in case it was proof that Dad didn’t love them enough.

It had been a rare occasion when they relied on one another. Their father had purposefully pitted them against each other, withholding all scraps of kindness until they were so starving they were willing to tear one another apart to try and get just a little bit closer to an impossible goal. But - sometimes, just sometimes, they were _family._ Holding the fort down together against what their father did.

Klaus wept his eyes out on Ben’s shoulder after harrowing nights in the mausoleum. Diego smiled through tears as their mother placed a comforting hand on his cheek. Allison and Luther swiped soda to share with one another in a pretend house they’d made just for them. They'd looked out for each other as well as they could have learned how to.

Vanya had always gone to Five, when she couldn’t bear the dismissal of the rest of the family. They hadn’t spoken much, they weren’t that kind of close, but she slipped into his room when it was dark and curled up on the end of his bed with a flashlight and a book and they sat together in silence. Sometimes she would lay back and whisper to him about music, about the childish compositions she was making all by herself in her free time. Five would hum soft responses and nudge at her with a socked foot to let her know he was still listening. They hadn't poured their hearts out to one another, they might not have even known how to do so, but they'd been friends. Allies. _Siblings._

And when their dad was especially terrible to her? When all he had were cutting words and a cold shoulder? Five would catch Vanya’s eye and look at her. Made sure she knew that even if no one else in the house looked at her, he would _see her_. Everyone else overlooked her as ordinary, but Five always paid attention. Enough to bump shoulders with her when she was looking especially sad, to try and make her feel at least a little included in the only way he could when he lived under Reginald Hargreeves’ iron rule.

But Five had always kept his private training just that - private. When any of the others half-heartedly shared their training stories, Five would grudgingly mention their father making him jump and jump until he couldn’t anymore. He didn’t mention the days when he jumped and crumpled to the ground, knees too weak to take his weight anymore as he hurled up everything he’d eaten on the cold unforgiving tiles. 

He certainly didn’t mention the _other_ training he’d gotten to anyone. 

Five hadn’t thought it unusual to keep it to himself, so he was surprised when they were lounging around the mansion as adults (and by the gods, Five was an adult no matter how much his idiot siblings seemed to gloss over that fact at the most inopportune times) and they just started - _talking_ about it.

It had been Luther who started it off, with an almost nostalgic look on his face mentioning, “I always did wonder what Dad did with all the old weights I outgrew.”

And of course, it had been Diego who had been antagonistic right back, exclaiming about how if all Luther had to do was lift weights then it was such bullshit favoritism. And then Diego had shared the fact that part of his training had involved their dad making Diego throw knives directly at Mom and making them curve at the last second. 

There had been a silence after that, but it was like a dam had broken.

Vanya mentioned that Dad had left her in the soundproof room for days on end until she thought she’d gone deaf, that it was made so that her voice just died at the end of each sentence and it was like she wasn’t real. She had nightmares about screaming and screaming with no sound coming out - one of the less fun side effects of unlocking those particular memories.

Allison had admitted that Dad took her out and had her practice her rumors on strangers. Mostly innocuous things, making some passerby go and buy a hotdog or give a homeless person some money out of rumored generosity. But sometimes - sometimes it had been worse. Playing with people for fun. Telling someone to break up with a significant other. Once, he’d caught a criminal for her and told her to rumor them into shooting themselves, curious if the rumors could overpower basic survival instincts.

They could.

“Dad was a heartless bastard,” Klaus waved a hand about in the air at the revelations, looking not the least bit surprised, “Do you guys remember when I’d go missing a few days in a row? Asshole used to lock me in the mausoleum. Wouldn't let me out until I wasn't scared anymore or something, sadistic ass.”

He said it in a carefree way, like it didn’t bother him, but Five could see the way the fabric on Klaus’ shoulder bunched unnaturally where a ghostly hand was lending him support now that Ben could actually touch his brother.

“I didn’t even know we had a mausoleum in the house,” Luther announced, like it was any surprise to the rest of them that Luther was oblivious about everything that didn't concern him and the moon. _Five_ had known. Then again, there were precious few places in the house Five hadn’t been in, forced or not. After all, dear old Dad had used to have him jump between different areas of the house and back until he reached his limit.

Five had only cheated _once_. Smaller jumps were easier than big ones, and he’d thought himself so very clever when he’d just jumped to the next room and back whenever he was ordered to go somewhere. It wasn’t until later when he’d been _punished_ that he remembered that Dad could check the cameras and see just how obedient Five wasn’t. He’d never made that mistake again, even when the frequent jumping had left him retching helplessly and unable to pry himself from the floor. He'd never forgotten that they had been watched after that either, that the walls had eyes.

Someone cleared their throat, and Five looked up to see all eyes on him. Oh. They were expecting him to share. He opened his mouth to tell them all to fuck off and mind their own business, but what came out instead was - 

“He used to tie me up.”

It wasn’t what they were expecting to hear. He knew what they’d been expecting to hear. To hear about the forced chain jumping. The collapsing and hurting. But - that had been the _good_ kind of training, and what did that say about his childhood that collapsing out of exhaustion was the best possible outcome?

Five didn’t look at any of them as he continued, “He noticed I do this - _thing_ with my hand when I jump? I don’t usually need it if I’m walking forward but it’s like I pull the jump to me instead of walking through it. He wanted to see if I could jump when I couldn’t use my hands or - or anything.”

He’d crossed his arms tightly across his stomach and hunched over without realizing it, remembering the press of - of the _straight jacket_ he’d been forced into before being belted down to a table and left there. Dad had wanted to see if he could just flash out of the restraints like he’d already managed to get out of being handcuffed to a rail in the very first iteration of the experiment.

He’d been six the first time. Five wondered, looking back, how Dad had even gotten his hands on a straight jacket small enough to fit him.

“He thought if I was desperate enough I’d be able to figure out how to do it without moving, and he’d just. Leave me there.” Hours upon hours as Five tried and failed to jump, tears streaming down his face as he begged and pleaded at the walls (the cameras, even back then he’d known it probably wasn’t useless but had still been naive enough to believe he could move his father’s stone heart if he tried) to let him go.

When he was eight, he’d actually managed it. Because he’d cheated. He’d learned how to wriggle and work at the restraints until he had just enough room to flex his wrists and jump to his room. He’d hidden under his bed and refused to come to dinner no matter how much Grace had attempted to coax him out. The other kids just thought he was still training. They didn’t mention a word when Five popped out of his room the next day with dark circles lurking beneath his eyes, Allison had commented that he needed to fix his hair and that was it.

Dad had made sure the restraints were tighter the next time, more difficult to get out of.

It became a test of wills between them. Whether Five could budge the restraints enough to get free and whether Dad could get them secure enough to force Five into jumping without a single movement on his part. Honestly, after a while, Five didn’t even think it was about the experiment anymore. It was about punishment. Hitting him had never worked out, and Five had always pushed and boundaries and buttons, making comments and standing up to their Dad when the rest of his siblings couldn’t even look Reginald Hargreeves in the eyes. 

Dad had controlled most of them through fear and desperation in equal measures. Luther had been so eager to do Dad proud he would never think of standing against him. Allison as well looked to Dad in a way, always wanting to be the best and the smartest and the prettiest, willing to claw at the others to get noticed. Vanya had perhaps been the most desperate for recognition though, quietly and silently going along with everything to be the good child. Klaus and Ben were afraid, Klaus flinching at shadows and Ben not willing to say a single word in Dad’s presence except when asked a direct question.

Five though? Five had no want or need for Reginald Hargreeves’ approval. Alongside that was an inadvisable lack of fear that led to Five continuing to press and push until he was punished, blood on his teeth and bitterness in his heart. And if those times he pushed harder and harder coincided with when dear old Dad had been more despicable than usual to Five’s siblings? Well. Surely it must have been a coincidence.

Five snapped out of those thoughts when a weight pressed along his shoulders making him jump. It was only Klaus’s arm, his addict brother staring at him with something almost like concern as he asked a simple, “Are you alright?”

Well, at least his thing about being touched couldn’t be attributed to Dad. That fucked up part of his brain that made him slap Klaus’s arm off of him was the product of years spent in the apocalypse with no one (except Dolores of course, but as good a companion she was the smooth plastic couldn’t substitute human touch). Klaus withdrew a bit, and Five’s shoulders burned where the arm had been.

Klaus grinned at Five with all teeth, “Man, Dad really fucked us up, hey?” 

With hands that almost didn’t shake anymore from withdrawal, Klaus poured whatever was on the table into another glass and shoved in ungracefully in Five’s direction. Five’s hands came up automatically to take it before it could be spilled all over his (new, non-Umbrella Academy) sweater.

Five paused a second before lifting the drink slightly, “I’ll drink to that.”

Klaus lit up at the peace offering being taken by his youngest oldest brother and enthusiastically lifted his drink skyward, “To Dad being an ass!”

Everyone ignored Luther’s half-hearted protest and echoed the cheer before drinking. Klaus leaned back again and because he clearly had no sense of self preservation, flung as arm back across Five’s shoulders.

This time though, Five ignored it despite the prickling across his shoulders. He looked into his drink and almost smiled.

Hey, they might have the most fucked up family in the world, but at least they had each other.

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished the Umbrella Academy on Netflix and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings?? I've never read the comics but maybe i SHOULD
> 
> Five is my favorite character and Klaus is a close second but I love all of my dumb traumatized children (even VERY grudgingly Luther)
> 
> Also this is my very first published fic so,,, be gentle with me lads I have no beta and it's just me rambling for the most part and i double checked exactly Nothing so there's that  
> Feel free to point out spelling and grammar errors bc it's like, midnight and I'm half asleep but posting this anyway because why not


End file.
